
#912 – Bert de Bock
Born 240 AD in Durocortorum, Bert was loyal to the breakaway Gallic Empire which lost to Emperor Aurelian at the Battle of Châlons in 274. Refusing to capitulate, he was sent to battle in the gladiator pits of Rome.
RomanPunks is a retrofuturistic, cyberpunk derivative world-building project inspired by fine art, history and the cryptopunk movement.
A total of 1,000 RomanPunk characters have been frozen in time and minted as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum, WAX, Polygon and Algorand blockchains.
RomanPunk characters are comprised of commoners and famous individuals based on Roman history, art history and pop culture.
The basis for RomanPunk lore and backstories is exhaustively researched by history/sci-fi buff and co-founder, Punktavian.
All images are drawn by hand by woman artist and co-founder, Cleopunktra, without the aid of AI or generative tools.

RomanPunks came into existence through early minting on OpenSea, promoting on Twitter and building a Discord community through giveaways and engagement. The idea of a cyberpunk-derivative ‘RomanPunk’ theme was in our heads for years, but it was the success of the Cryptopunks that became the catalyst for project conception and launch.

After a hard working first 60 days spent networking and attracting new collectors to RomanPunks, our community had begun to flourish and sales increased. We began to offer our collectors an opportunity to battle their NFTs in a tournament bracket powered by dice rolls.

Encouraged by the tight knit community and the carbon-neutral blockchain with lightning fast and low cost transactions, we launched 'romanpunksio' collection on WAX Blockchain as the first step to expand the backstories of our RomanPunk characters and the baseline for future development of a card game.

RomanPunks integrated with Chainlink Labs to utilize VRF (Verified Randomness Function) to host a giveaway raffle for our holders. We developed a smart contract on Ethereum which guarantees true random number selection on chain and can be used for a wide range of functions that require random selection.
After much anticipation in the community, we released our first WAX NFT card 'pack' through the Neftyblocks platform, which sold out in less than a week.
We launched our Twitch channel and begun building an audience by offering numerous giveaways of WAX NFTs from our collection, as well as giving participants a chance to win RomanPunk ETH NFT airdrops for taking top spot at the end of the 'season'.

As firm believers in a metaverse future and land owners in The Sandbox, we undertook to build the RomanPunk Colosseum on 1x1 land and entered our experience "Gladiator Bloodsport" into a GameJam contest. We will continue to build the Colosseum into a PVP arena and social hub once The Sandbox offers creators the ability to do so.
Thanks to the user friendly tools offered by NeftyBlocks, we launched a comprehensive blending system on WAX, allowing our collectors to blend the common NFTs they earn in our Discord RPG up into Legendary famous NFTs through the use of blending 'coins' that can also be earned on the Discord as reward for helping to promote the RomanPunks project.
We launched the VX collection on Polygon. Each owner of an ETH NFT gets their voxel equivalent airdropped to them, and these NFTs can be redeemed for official NFTs on The Sandbox Marketplace once available.

All 1,000 original, unique 1:1 RomanPunk characters hand drawn by Cleopunktra and minted on OpenSea.

The RomanPunk WAX NFT Trading Card Fighter Pack Series II consists of 3 NFTs randomly selected from over 236 characters.

Upcoming plans for RomanPunks include:
Below is a comprehensive and searchable directory of all 1,000 RomanPunk Characters.

Born 240 AD in Durocortorum, Bert was loyal to the breakaway Gallic Empire which lost to Emperor Aurelian at the Battle of Châlons in 274. Refusing to capitulate, he was sent to battle in the gladiator pits of Rome.

Born in 131 BC in Jutland, Storm was a blacksmith in the disastrous war against the Roman forces of Gaius Marius. After their defeat, his wife, Oda, was enslaved as Marius’ concubine and he was cast into a dimensional portal to serve as a gladiator in a parallel universe of a Roman atomic age.

Born 2177 AD in Tridentum, Vayla, a server at an opulent hotel tiki bar in Neo-Carthage, is driven by grief and a fierce determination to seek justice for her murdered cyborg lover, Hecate Cybernius. Intelligent and resilient, Vayla becomes deeply involved in the investigation led by two vigilantes. Her resourcefulness, thirst for retribution and loyal Doberman, Ares, make her a crucial ally in the quest to expose the influential killer. Through her involvement in the plot, Vayla embodies the themes of loss, courage, and the relentless pursuit of truth in a dystopian world.

Born 397 AD in Sirmium, Exene was a war child who spent her youth on the battlefield where she met her husband Alaviv. Together they sacked and pillaged Africa with Genseric’s army until the king, feeling his rule threatened, exiled her through an interdimensional portal to the 20th century.

Born 2178 AD in Toletum, Velia is a descendant of King Alaric I, though she finds that about as useful in Neo-Carthage as a souvenir from a forgotten war. A wealthy socialite with a penchant for the morbid, Velia moves through the city’s elite circles with detached amusement. While rebellions and smuggling rings swirl around her, she drifts through it all, unintentionally entangling herself in minor scandals—never quite realizing how close she comes to chaos.

Born 141 AD in Burdigala, Lur, an acolyte of the Bishop of Lyon, called out Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ stoic philosophy as heresy and was condemned to toil in the wheat fields as punishment. Despite the enslavement, Lur found solace in his love for animals and the teachings of Jesus Christus.

Born 139 AD in Tarsus, Balacrus is as staunch defender of Roman interests in his native Cilicia. Upon learning of a planetary alien and cyborg invasion, Balacrus enlisted in Marcus Aurelius’ interdimensional task force to protect his native Earth from the extraterrestrial scourge.

Born in 355 AD on the shores of the Black Sea, Hilda Cixilo was raised in blood by warrior parents who trained them in battles against the Huns. After collecting 80 heads in the Battle of Adrianople, Hilda went on to distinguish herself in Mastaura as an undefeated gladiator.

Roland, born 389 AD in Burdigala, was an optio in the legion before his capture by the invading Visigoths who sentenced him to pass through an interdimensional portal to a Romanesque 1987 AD where he fights as a shopping mall gladiator.

Born 365 AD in Cagliari, Nereus is a pearl diver who discovered an interdimensional portal underwater which he used as his personal playground until he was kidnapped by aliens in league with Emperor Theodosius and forced to battle in a futuristic cybercolosseum.

Born 61 AD in Fife, Mac was captured by Agricola’s troops at the Battle of Mons Graupius and dispatched to Mauritania by Emperor Domitian as a slave farmer. While toiling in the fields, he discovered an interdimensional portal which he used to escape to an alternate 20th century in which the Roman Empire remains unvanquished. Now he operates a chariot harvester on a commercial wheat farm.

Born in 113 BC in Philippopolis, Seuthes fought with Spartacus in the Third Servile War, lost and was crucified by the Romans. His dying body was abducted off the cross by aliens, who forced him to fight as a cybergladiator for eternity.

Born 30 AD in Augusta Vindelicorum, Otto is a famous drinking gladiator who triumphed in the Bacchalian games of Titus for being the only contestant to complete the centurion challenge: one hundred tankards in one hundred minutes.

Born 145 BC in Sinope, Zoi and her brother Pythodoris were servants of Pluto, God of the Underworld, who fought for Mithridates the Great, were slain by the Romans and sent to purgatory where they are forced to fight an endless battle against impossible odds.

Born in 496 AD in Cuenca in a dimension where the Roman Empire had conquered America, not much else is known about Killa other than they are a bloodthirsty, undefeated gladiator known as the Cyberdemon who hops dimensions to challenge new foes across space and time.